. But an old dog won't learn new tricks. Guess it's too late in
the day for me and you to get together, son."

"It's never too late, Dad," he had wanted to say, but the words died on
his lips.

So it had been the failure of a mission; but then it closed an old and
painful chapter with finality and he was free to open a new leaf.

* * * * *

Lee looked ahead again. The speedometer needle trembled around the 150
mark. The sun drenched sand shot by, Joshua trees gesticulating wildly
in the tricky perspectives of the speed, out-crops of rocks getting
bigger now and more numerous, the road ahead starting to coil into a
maze of natural fortresses, giant pillars and bizarre pyramids looking
like the works of a titan race from another planet shone in unearthly
color schemes of black and purple and amber and green. With the winding
of the road and the waftings of the heat it was hard to make out a
course, but the Sierra Mountains now were towering almost up to the
zenith; like a giant surf they seemed to race against the car.

"Mind if I close the windows, sir?"

The chauffeur's question was rhetoric; he had already pushed a button,
the glass went up and within the next second the inside of the car
turned completely dark.

"Man," Lee shouted, gripping the front seat, "are you crazy?"

There suddenly was light again, but it was only the electric light
inside the car. The blackout of the world without remained complete, and
the speedometer needle still edged over the 150 mark.

"Crazy? I hope not." The chauffeur said it coolly; leaning comfortably
back he turned around for a better look at his fare.

With mounting horror Lee noticed that he even took his hands off the
wheel. Nonchalantly he lit a cigarette while the unguided wheel milled
crazily from side to side and the tires screeched through what seemed to
be a sharp S-curve. Still with his back to the wheel and in between
satisfying puffs of his smoke he continued:

"It's quite O.K. sir; it's only that we're on the guidebeam now. This
here car doesn't need a driver no more; it's on the beam."

"What beam?" Lee relaxed a little; it was the unexpectedness which had
bowled him over. "What beam? And why the blackout?"

"Just orders," the young man said. "The Brain's orders and it's the
Brain's beam. Seems to be new to you, sir; to me it's like an old story;
read about it when I was a kid: how they blindfolded people who entered
a belea